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Got it — let’s break this down step by step. Could you clarify what kind of drive you’re working with: is it a USB flash drive, SD card, or something else? Also, are you trying to make a Windows recovery USB, or just make the drive writable again? This will help me give precise steps.
Are there any free tools that actually work for LTO tape data recovery?
What are the most common causes of LTO tape failure you’ve seen?
Do you think LTO tapes are cheaper than cloud storage in the long run?
What software do you use with your LTO drives—LTFS, Retrospect, Bareos, or something else? What’s worked well for you, and what problems have you run into?
Appreciate all the advice, everyone. I’ll take it to a data recovery center first thing tomorrow and will try that software if I get even a flicker of life out of it.
Just to add..if you’re planning to revive it just for data, get a new battery or take it to a pro repair shop that does board-level repair. Once it powers on, stop using it and connect immediately to a recovery tool before anything gets overwritten.
If you can get it to at least show something on the screen or get detected, you can try using an Android data recovery software on your PC. It can scan internal storage and recover photos, videos, contacts..all that. Works if the phone boots even partially.
I bid on an auction on a whim and ended up with an IBM Power9 S914 server with 4x16GB RAM and 12 open slots. Below it is a TS4300 tape library that can hold 40 LTO cartridges, which works out to about 720TB if using 18TB tapes. I honestly have no idea where to start with it.
The top unit is an IBM HMC (7063-CR1), which can manage multiple servers. The setup also came with rails, cables, spare network cards, and a slide-out KVM with a screen and keyboard.
At home, I already have a full rack with unused Dell R620s, a Unifi UNAS-Pro with 7x20TB WD Red Pros for media, and a small Dell micro cluster for my homelab. I originally wanted a server to host some SaaS sites, but now I’m considering selling the IBM gear and getting a Dell R740 or R750 instead.
So, what exactly do I have here, what’s it worth, and what’s the best way to sell it if I decide to? Or what would you do with it if it were yours?
Yeah, looks like it’s not even soft-bricked. The PC doesn’t pick it up at all. Are there any tools that could still help if I somehow get it to power on?
If Smart Switch or Odin can’t detect it, your best shot is with a PC data recovery tool. There are Android recovery programs that can scan phones that are still soft dead (detected by USB). If it doesn’t detect at all, you might be in hard-brick territory.
I have a 2023 system with a simple ZFS mirror pool (rust) using 2x14TB Seagate drives. The system also has 4 SSDs (boot, mirrored data, L2ARC).
Yesterday, TrueNAS reported one drive (ZHZ3Q546) had failed, and the pool went DEGRADED, then SUSPENDED. After a reboot, the pool showed ONLINE and started resilvering. Later, the other drive (WAINR7DV) became DEGRADED. Resilvering is extremely slow (around 600KB/s), causing high I/O load, and SSH/web access is difficult.
I powered off and removed WAINR7DV, checked it on another system, and it looked fine. TrueNAS now keeps rebooting. A scrub on WAINR7DV found no issues.
I want to keep the system running with a single degraded drive while I get a replacement. I’m looking for advice on what might have happened, what I may have done wrong during recovery, and the best next steps.
EDIT: I left WAINR7DV in the system after the first alert. The system now boots in degraded state, and a long SMART test is running.
A small dealership with 11 employees, organized into Sales, Part/Service, and Management teams, currently operates on a local workgroup with no domain. They’re using a 5TB USB drive shared over the network for file storage, which is neither secure nor reliable. All employees have Google Workspace accounts with Gmail and Google Drive. With a budget of around $500, the options under consideration are either an on-prem Synology NAS for a shared network drive with backups to Google Drive, or using Google Drive directly as the network storage. Recommendations on the best approach, suitable products, and setup difficulty are being sought.
If it’s not showing anything even in download mode or recovery mode, you’re likely dealing with a dead board or blown charging circuit. You can try connecting it to a PC with Samsung Smart Switch installed — it sometimes detects even semi-dead phones.
Backing up your laptop or PC is important to protect your data from hardware failures or accidental deletion. There are several free tools available for different needs, from simple file backups to full system images.
Free Backup Tools for Windows
1. EaseUS Todo Backup Free
Allows backup of files, partitions, or entire systems. Supports full, incremental, and differential backups. Also offers disk cloning and bootable media creation. Free version includes 250GB cloud storage and encryption.
2. AOMEI Backupper Standard
Offers system, disk, partition, and file backups. Supports scheduled, incremental, and differential backups. Simple interface suitable for beginners and advanced users.
3. FreeFileSync
Open-source tool for file synchronization and backup. Compares and syncs files and folders, supports real-time sync, batch processing, and large datasets.
4. MSP360 Free Backup
Supports cloud and local backups, works with Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, and Wasabi. Free version allows up to 5TB, with encryption and compression.
5. Hasleo Backup Suite Free
Supports system, disk, and partition backups, as well as disk cloning. Compatible with x86/x64 and ARM64 devices.